I’m grateful for the Camp des Milles Memorial and everyone who had a hand in preserving this history. Also to the many people who made my research in various places as comfortable as home and far more interesting, especially Robin and David Young, who allowed me to stay in their beautiful Paris apartment, and Thomas Chase, who was such a great help there.
The enormously talented Adrienne Defendi helped me with passages on photography. Mynda Barenholtz helped with research. Brenda Rickman Vantrease and Jenn DuChene read for me.
I am so grateful to The Brothers Four—Pat, Mike, Mark, and Dave Waite—for helping our parents in a difficult time as I was writing this book, and to Mom and Dad for so very much support in every way. My sons, Chris and Nick, provided moral support and, in being their wonderfully steady and safe selves, allowed me to set aside a mother’s worries and get words onto the page.
As always, the company of my amazing partner in life, Mac Clayton, made the research trips to France great fun, even as the Berthillon melted faster than we could eat it in that long stretch of record Paris heat. He tirelessly read draft after draft, always providing great suggestions. Truly, without his help, I could not have completed this novel on the schedule I did. His company, love, and patience saw me through the long days of writing this novel in the midst of a pandemic, which I hope will be in our rearview mirror as you are reading this. （Knock wood; Nanée does draw her superstition from my own.）
About the Author
MEG WAITE CLAYTON is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of seven prior novels, most recently the Jewish Book Award finalist The Last Train to London. Her novels include the Langum Prize–honored The Race for Paris; The Language of Light, a finalist for the Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction （now the PEN/Bellwether）; and The Wednesday Sisters, one of Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of all time. A graduate of the University of Michigan and its law school, Meg has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Forbes, Runner’s World, and public radio. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in northern California.
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